


Sing for Me

by ObliqueOptimism



Series: Life in the City [1]
Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Not Beta Read
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-21
Packaged: 2020-03-09 00:56:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18906235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ObliqueOptimism/pseuds/ObliqueOptimism
Summary: Klaus can always talk to the ghosts who haunt him.





	Sing for Me

**Author's Note:**

> it's one thirty in the morning and mother and i have shared two bottles of wine and all thru writing this i went from sober while drinking wine to multiple bottles in and still writing it but i had to take a break from the coffee shop au i've been writing for this fic due to _reasons_ and so i banged this out real quick. sorry not sorry. idk how good this is i didn't even reread it due to wine okay? (god i love the viscosity of wine guys)

Klaus doesn’t know any language except english. Fluently, that is. He had taught himself some german over the years, a few key words in french and spanish. While in ‘68 he learned a smattering of vietnamese. 

That was, unless someone spoke to him in a different language, then he just somehow _knew_ what they were saying and he _knew_ what to say back. 

Daddy, bless his black soul, had tried to force languages into Klaus’s brain, thinking that not all ghosts would speak english (he was right) but Klaus was hard to teach as it seemed like as long as it was verbal he picked it up right away. There had been talk to him maybe being dyslexic because he just couldn’t figure out foreign languages if they were written out or wanting him to write but he had no problem writing or reading in english.

After a while daddy washed his hands of it.

Klaus long ago decided it was part of his power. What use is seeing and hearing the dead if he couldn’t understand them?

Mostly it didn’t come up. 

Sure, sometimes when he was wandering around as a (mostly) homeless junkie he ran into others who didn’t speak any or much english and Mr. Vitali was better in his native italian and spoke english with such a heavy accent that he may as well not be speaking english so he and Klaus got on, him thinking that Klaus spoke fluent italian. But if someone who wasn’t speaking a foreign tongue to him asked him to say something in a different language? _Sorry, no idea. Sure I was just speaking russian a second ago but don’t ask me to repeat myself. No can do, buddy._

Half the time Klaus isn’t even aware he’s not speaking english.

But he hadn’t realized his siblings didn’t know about this subset ability.

Ben found out after he died, of course. Mr. Vitali was a kind and old italian man who would give Klaus some food from time to time or let him sleep on the floor of the store when it was too cold to be outside. Klaus knew he got this treatment because he seemed to know italian and could understand him. 

“Mr. Vitali has no family here in America,” Klaus told him, the first time Ben met Mr. Vitali. 

Ben had been dead for about a month and Klaus had moved out for much longer than that.

“They’d planned to come here together but, he won’t go into too many details, bad stuff happened. Wife died on the way over, kids died within five years. They aren’t, y’know, around,” Klaus twirled his index finger around the empty store. 

“Shit, Klaus,” Ben whispered back, even though he wouldn’t be waking up Mr. Vitali.

“He likes me. I think I remind him of his daughter. First time he saw me I was wearing a skirt and he made a comment, don’t remember what, but I guess it was in italian,” Klaus shrugged. “I snarked at him and he was surprised that a waif like me knew italian. We struck up a conversation.”

“You don’t know italian,” Ben commented.

“No I do not,” Klaus shrugged. “But I’m not telling Mr. Vitali that. He bought me these shoes last year. BOGO, I guess. I can always understand whatever people tell me. Wild, huh?” He let out a chuckle.

Over the years it came in handy a few times. In rehab there once was another boy there, still a teen, who only spoke spanish. Some of the workers knew enough spanish to help him but Klaus was the only other resident who could talk to him. They bonded some. It hurt, a week after Klaus left rehab that he saw his friend’s ghost.

He didn’t ask if the OD was intentional.

Then he ran into Vanya, the book was already out. Klaus was hanging out at the bookstore. The store had free coffee and Ben could read some of the books and if Klaus had the cash he’d buy Ben a book or two. He honestly hadn’t realized that she was doing a book reading there that day. 

All he knew that _something_ was happening because not only did they have free shitty coffee but free shitty sandwiches. 

With a small plate full of sandwiches and a small styrofoam cup full of coffee, he gestured wildly as he spoke to a customer. They were visiting from Brazil and for some reason thought they could find some books in portuguese in the store. Klaus hadn’t gotten around to asking why they’d ever think that when he heard a, “Klaus?”

Klaus turned, spilling some coffee on the poor Brazilian. He said a quick apology before turning to his sister, “Vanya? What are you doing here?”

“I’m doing a reading. I thought-- of course you aren’t here for me,” she looked down at her feet for a second. “You speak -- what was that?”

“Uh, portuguese? I think,” he turned to the Brazilian and double checked. “Yeah. Portuguese. And no. I don’t _actually_ know it.”

She frowned, “You don’t need to lie to me. You were just having a conversation in it, Klaus.”

Klaus shrugged, “It’s a thing I can do? It’s not like you know everything about me, even though you clearly thought you did,” he gestured to the book in her hand. When she flinched he held up his hands, “Hey listen. I don’t blame you. Someone should be sticking it to the man. And kudos for the money you must be getting. You get ‘em, girl. Just uh, realize that you don’t know shit about us, alright?”

She looked slightly taken aback, “You don’t mind? Klaus I said--”

 _”I know what you said,_ ” Klaus muttered. His Brazilian friend slowly backed away, realizing that the conversation wasn’t as friendly as they thought at first. “No, I forgive you, Van. You’re fine, babe. Keep doin’ you.” 

Walking up to her he put his hands on her shoulders, “I do miss your music, my dear. Please say you aren’t stopping that because you wrote a book, eh?”

“No, I would never,” Vanya blinked, taken aback by his words of his touch. He sure didn’t know. Nor did he ask.

“Well, I must be off. But thanks for the reason I got free sandwiches.”

He did not want to stay and hear her read her book.

And then he went to war.

And while he did _actually learn_ some vietnamese he mostly relied on his power. It did make it harder to know if the people shouting through the trees were on his side or not when he couldn’t register if they were speaking english or vietnamese without _really focusing_. And focusing during a war is _hard_.

But he had no problem talking to the locals while there. He often acted as translator whenever they were on leave. 

“It’s kind of uh, hot when you speak vietnamese,” Dave whispered to him one night.

“Dave, dollface. I’d _love_ to woo you with it and whisper sweet vietnamese nothings in your ear but I really only can do it if someone prompts me first,” he shrugged. “Sorry to disappoint.”

Dave laughed, “What does that even mean?”

“Well, lets just say that usually I’m too high? And can only remember when someone jogs my memory,” Klaus thought that was a good excuse.

Dave bought the lie.

Then back to the future.

Not as much fun as Marty McFly made it seem. 

Then his sister _has powers_ and she almost destroyed the moon but her beam fo fucking white light missed it by what looked like five feet but probably was much more if you were up there on the moon (yes Luther, we know). 

And life went on.

Klaus got sober, much to his regret. Diego rejoined the police in his friend’s memory, Vanya learned her powers and played music, Allison went back to be with her daughter, Five continued to be a pest in the Commission's side, Luther lifted weights? Klaus wasn’t sure what Luther did.

So Klaus had picked up baking (along with other hobbies) and had made a tray bake earlier in the day and decided to bring some to Diego, the new police officer. Only while there he ran into a woman who was witness but only spoke finnish.

“I can translate?” Klaus asked, hesitantly. He sat the tray bake down on Diego’s desk.

“What? You know--” he waved his hand, indicating whatever language the woman was saying.

“Sure,” Klaus said the half-lie. 

And he preceded to translate for a good hour or so. What happened, what the perpator looked like, all that jazz.

Afterwards:

“How the fuck did you learn finnish?”

“I haven’t,” Klaus shrugged. “I just know languages. It’s a thing? I can do.” He didn’t want to get into it.

Thankfully Diego didn’t ask more. At least at the police precinct. But later that night he brought it up at the dinner table. It was nice to have Ben and Vanya back him up on what he was saying. Too bad Luther and Five weren’t around to find out as well.

Only then he ended up arguing with a stubborn ghost in front of Five (one Five killed no less) who only spoke fucking mongolian (wtf) and so he had to explain _again_.

And Klaus was sober now. Finally sober. He and Ben was going to go back to Mr. Vitali and let him know. He was one who helped him out the most while he was a homeless addict. He wanted to show his friend that he finally doing better. Only Luther apparently followed him, thinking he was meeting with a dealer, probably. 

“You speak fluent italian?” Luther came out of the shadows (how did someone that big hide in the shadows? How did he know it was italian?).

“Uh, sure?” Klaus said before pointing at Mr. Vitali, “He’s my buddy.”

Mr. Vitali smiled at him and said he was proud. 

He seemed more proud of Klaus than Luther did.

Which just figured.

Either way that was an awkward reunion with Luther beside him, questioning everything. Thankfully he and Mr. Vitali shared more than one eye roll and Mr. Vitali made comments at Luther as well as Klaus himself. 

Good ol’ Mr. Vitali.

And of course Allison was told by Luther and had to call him later that night.

Klaus was glad that his siblings now all knew about his secondary power? His subset power? Whatever Five wanted to call it. 

Only then suddenly one morning he was fucking floating and as he called for help his incense burner exploded. 

Turned out he had some real and actual secondary powers. 

But that was a tale for another time.


End file.
